1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of Web application management and more particularly to user interface component event coordination in a Web application user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Distributed application technologies have progressed substantially over the course of the past half century. Initially centered about a centralized mainframe computing model with dumb terminals for client access, distributed application technologies matured through a client-server phase in which a substantial of the program logic resided within the client itself. Still, the demands of higher level computing resulted in increasing hardware requirements at the client side thus encouraging a retreat back to the hosted application model enabled by the Internet and the World Wide Web. In this regard, the Web acts as a tremendous enabler in distributing an application user interface and even medium weight program logic to a relatively lightweight client hosting a no-cost, common Web browser, thus eliminating the disadvantage of traditional client-server computing.
Initially, Web applications suffered from what may be termed as a less than robust user interface. Advances in user interface technologies and the advent of the portal concept, however, now permits a robust and complex user interface of multiple, independently functioning user interface components. Enabling technologies allow each component in the Web user interface to maintain separate network connectivity to backend logic and data sources. Further, enabling technologies allow each component in the Web user interface to refresh separately so as to not interfere with the view of neighboring components in the Web user interface. Consequently, the Web user interface of today rivals the traditional graphical user interface of client-server computing.
Notwithstanding the robustness of the Web application user interface, challenges remain. In this regard, different user interface components often require knowledge of the state of neighboring components in the user interface. Traditional methodologies for coordinating the communications of component state amongst the components of a user interface involve any of a dominant middleware solution, relentless cookie writing, or a highly complex event loop capturing events for each different component. These traditional methods suffer in many respects, though. For instance, middleware solutions determine when and how components are updated, thereby disallowing the autonomy of the components. Cookies inhibit scalability and event loops remain dependent on the unreliable timing of the receipt of events from the different components.